Another good burger restaurant opens in Fort Worth’s Near Southside — with a twist

Bud Kennedy
·3 min read
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Magnolia Avenue is home base for plant-based dining in Fort Worth, but restaurateurs know the food still has to be good.

Vice Burger, a new diner at 1515 W. Magnolia Ave., accomplishes that by keeping everything simple.

Pea- or wheat-based burgers are served on toasted buns, fresh off a well-seasoned griddle. They’re topped with the same great add-ons such as avocado or grilled Hatch green chiles that you’d find in any burger grill.

Tack on the seasoned “sidewinder” fries or tater tots and the coconut-milk NadaMoo chocolate shakes and you have a classic burger diner experience — just without beef.

Vice Burger in Fort Worth serves burgers, all pea-based or wheat-based, hot dogs, chili dogs and brats with toppings such as Hatch green chiles (shown).
Vice Burger in Fort Worth serves burgers, all pea-based or wheat-based, hot dogs, chili dogs and brats with toppings such as Hatch green chiles (shown).

Vice Burger’s plant-based chicken-filet pepper jack sandwich is equally successful. After all, how “real” are the shaped fast-food chicken patties or “nuggets” consumed by the millions daily, anyway?

And there’s a hot dog or chili dog, both made from the same Field Roast “garden” franks served at Portillo’s. with a choice of toppings including a familiar-tasting but vegan chili.

With fine-dining vegan restaurant and weekend tea room Maiden around the corner, breakfast favorite Spiral Diner down the street and a major hospital a block away, Vice Burger is in exactly the right location for garden burger fame.

It’s the latest from Boulevard of Greens and Roots Coffee House founders Marcus Brunt and Charlsye Lewis, who have combined vegan menus with the style and branding of successful restaurants.

Vice Burger is a small plant-based burger and hot dog diner near Fort Worth hospitals.
Vice Burger is a small plant-based burger and hot dog diner near Fort Worth hospitals.

The space at 1515 W. Magnolia Ave. looks so much like an old-time diner, you’d swear it probably was a historic restaurant. In fact, it’s a 90-year-old former insurance office and used-car lot office that operated in recent years as a hot dog stand or poke shop.

Vice Burger has a simple order counter, a case of California-based Olipop probiotic tonic “sodas” and a row of stools along the wall. There’s a large patio.

If you’re wondering about the pea- and wheat-based burgers, don’t get confused.

Vice Burger serves a choice of pea-based Beyond Meat burgers or wheat-based Impossible Burgers. Neither is steer-based, but also neither is particularly low-fat.

But both are ways to enjoy a burger bun and toppings without beef, and the Impossible Burger in particular has the juicy texture of a typical burger.

A rack of sodas is up front at the stylistic Vice Burger diner in Fort Worth.
A rack of sodas is up front at the stylistic Vice Burger diner in Fort Worth.

Vice Burger adds Best Maid pickles and its own “Vice sauce” secret sauce, or there’s mustard, ketchup and sweet relish.

(Note to Vice: Sriracha would be a big help.)

This is far from the only garden burger in the market.

Down Magnolia Avenue, neighborhood tradition Shaw’s offers choices of black-bean or portobello burgers.

Not far south off Eighth Avenue, the Old Neighborhood Grill offers a choice of a garden burger patty on its regular burgers, with a wider choice of toppings.

Both charge less than Vice.

But Vice captures a fun vibe that fits well on the southside.

It’s open for lunch and early dinner daily except Mondays for now, expanding in the next few days to add nighttime hours; 817-985-6560, vice-burger.com.